Legislature concocts bitter regulatory brew

Published: Wednesday, April 23, 2014 at 5:30 a.m.

Last Modified: Tuesday, April 22, 2014 at 6:30 p.m.

You don’t have to be a beer aficionado to identify the source of Florida Senate Bill 1714’s bitter taste: pure protectionist politics.

For the second year in a row, manufacturers of craft beers — microbreweries — are battling the Legislature to change the state’s outdated regulatory code to allow them to sell their products onsite in 64-ounce take-home containers, commonly called “growlers.” The current law permits 32-ounce and 128-ounce growlers, but not the most popular size as is allowed in 47 other states.

The primary opposition comes from large distributors of traditional, mass-market beers, who fear the small upstarts eroding Big Beer’s market share. One such Panhandle distributor has a powerful ally in Tallahassee: Senate President Don Gaetz, R-Niceville, who last month told the AP that he will support whatever beer policies his friend and GOP campaign donor Lewis Bear, an Anheuser-Busch InBev distributor, advises him to support.

Big Beer’s latest tactic is to accede to allowing the 64-ounce growlers, but only if microbreweries agree to jump through more regulatory hoops that are aimed at crippling their businesses. For example, SB 1714, which passed the Senate Rules Committee Monday on a 9-4 vote, would require microbreweries selling up to 2,000 kegs a year of their own brew to distribute their products through an established distributorship. Then they would have to buy back their own product — at marked-up prices — before they could sell it to consumers for home consumption.

The beer wouldn’t even have to leave the premises or change hands. The middleman would just pocket the money.

That is nothing more than a shakedown facilitated by elected officials. Sen. Jack Latvala, R-Clearwater, rightly compares it to paying protection money to the mob. Many microbreweries say they could not survive financially under that arrangement.

Even if most are content to sip an ice cold Budweiser or Miller Lite and leave the hoppier brews to the beer snobs, local residents should be concerned. Volusia County is home to several microbreweries that have opened in the last 12 months, with more on the way. It is a growth industry here and around the state that is carving out a niche in the market.

Brewpubs are giving people what they want, whereas Big Beer, aided and abetted by legislators, is attempting to use the law to deny consumers a choice in their adult beverages.

Florida’s alcohol distribution laws are a vestige of the Prohibition era. The current regulatory framework does more to protect entrenched political interests than to promote a legitimate public interest ,and threatens to do economic harm to communities such as Volusia County that are enjoying the benefits of the growth in small businesses.

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